The Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS) recognizes the need for continuing medical education (CME) reform and intends to be actively engaged in that process. While recognizing that CME reform must involve many organizations, the CMSS and particularly the 23 societies that make up the CMSS are in a position to affect many of the needed changes. Of these, perhaps the most important is the need to link CME to a change in physician behavior and patient outcomes. Other important tasks involve the expansion and improvement of available needs assessment modalities, the development and updating of curricula, the official recognition of multiple modalities available for physician learning, the broadening of the CME research agenda, and the need to explore alternate ways of financing lifelong learning. With the accomplishment of these reforms, medical education may finally be viewed as a continuum from undergraduate education through education of the practicing physician, and patient safety will be favorably impacted. Education will change from an episodic experience to a continuous process and one that is based on the realities of practice. These reforms will take time to accomplish and to be accepted by a profession that currently views itself as besieged by regulatory agencies and without the time and resources needed to comply with the changes.